Something Like Now
by BlackxRose19
Summary: At another time, in another place, this could've been okay. Hans/Elsa


**A/N:** Well, hello. This should be affectionately titled "the oneshot that spiraled out of control and became four times longer than I thought it would be".

Even though I have two other Hans/Elsa stories that have been waiting to be written for a couple months, this came into my head and I couldn't not write it.

This is modern AU, and I'm afraid I may have made Hans much too nice. This is about as happy as I will ever write Hans/Elsa, because this pairing basically begs for lots of angst and drama.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy! Hope you all had a happy Iceburns Week!

Warnings: This is rated M, for a reason. Just so you know.

* * *

She looks familiar, like someone he's met before.

That's the first thing he notices.

The club is loud and dark, all neon lights and ugly wood paneling; some sort of perpetual cigarette-induced cloud hangs over the heads of the gyrating crowd. He's had more than enough to drink, and there's some sort of candy-lip-glossed girl grinding her backside much too close to him, but then he sees _her_, all blue skirt and blonde hair, and none of the other stuff matters.

The second thing he notices are the guys, the ones that are standing a little too close to her, the ones that are trying to buy her drinks and wrap their arms around her waist, the ones that are cooing _C'mon, baby, just loosen up. _He watches them for a couple minutes, waits, and wonders if this girl is going to do anything other than hang on to the end of her braid like a life-line. He waits just long enough to see one of the guys _(some tattooed, greasy-haired playboy who probably smells like cheap booze and even cheaper cologne)_ back her up against the bar and slip his hand up under her shirt, and Hans decides he's had enough.

He strides to the bar in a few quick steps and maneuvers his way between the guy and the girl.

"Hey, there you are!" he exclaims, and his smile is too big and too false and the girl, at first, looks scared to death, but then her mouth pops open in a little surprised "oh" and she squints through the haze in the air, and he takes in her blue, blue eyes, her freckles, the little overbite she has when she doesn't quite close her mouth all the way, like she's doing now, and at just the moment when the little light bulb goes off in the dark, non-drunk corner of his mind, she remembers too.

"Hans?"

"Hey…Elsa." Her name is stiff in her mouth, stiff and awkward, because when he looks at this girl, the only thing he remembers is her sister and those three months and_ that_ night, that awful, awful night when she called it quits, and the awful, awful phone call he got a few hours later from this very girl, the phone call that was so angry, so accusing, voice full of blame and malice, snarling, _How could you?_ and _Leave her alone,_ and he never got a chance to explain that she was wrong, because she hung up on him exactly one second after she was finished screaming at him.

Elsa frowns, and the guy, the one that still has his hand on her hip, one finger still sneaking under the hem of her shirt, frowns too, so Hans tries his hardest to push that night to the back of his mind, for the moment. He winks in a way he hopes looks reassuring. "I was looking for you everywhere."

Her jaw falls again and she gapes, open-mouthed, like a fish plucked out of a stream. The guy, the one who finally takes his hands off of her, laughs. "You know this dude, babe?"

Hans rolls his eyes, taking in the menagerie of empty glasses and bottles on the bar behind them. "Yes, she knows me. And she has a name." Elsa laughs then, loud and sharp, and Hans wonders how many of those empties belong to her. "Elsa, let's go outside, okay?"

"Why?" But she stands anyways. She wobbles slightly and the greasy-haired sleazebag takes this moment to steady her by grabbing her rear end. She giggles a little, takes a glass off the bar behind her, and drains the remainder of the clear liquid. It makes her cringe and Hans takes this moment to remove her from the situation. He grabs her by the elbow and leads her slowly through the crowd.

She waits until they're out the side door and standing on the curb before she jerks away from him and begins to storm shakily down the sidewalk.

"Where in the hell are you going?"

"Home."

"And just how are you going to get there, _princess_?"

"Don't call me that." Elsa takes one step off the curb and plants the heel of her shoe directly into a sewer grate. She stumbles and Hans is presented a very generous view of her undergarments before she rights herself, brushing gravel and dirt off of her hands and knees.

He manages to catch up with her before she can get any farther; alcohol and high heels don't seem to mix very well. He grabs her upper arm just as she finishes removing the last speck of dirt from her palms. "Here, let me help you."

The elbow that slams sharply backward into his rib cage seems too well-aimed to be an accident. "I don't need your help, _Hans._ Thanks, but no thanks."

"At least let me drive you home."

"I have a car."

"You're drunk."

"I am _not_." But her voice slurs on the second word and, as if to punctuate his point, she wobbles on her heels and her purse falls from her grasp, the contents spilling across the parking lot. "Fuck," she snaps, and sinks down on her knees, grabbing the lipstick tube that is quickly making its way under a parked car.

He joins her on the ground, picking up the loose change shining on the concrete. He holds out a handful of pennies and dimes, which she snatches from his hand and shoves into her purse.

"I don't need your help."

"I'm just trying to be nice."

"How? By helping me when I've already told you that I don't need it? I don't know if you think you're being chivalrous, or charitable, or what, Hans, but I have a car, I am not drunk, I can get-" Elsa cuts herself off when she realizes that the vital ingredient in her escape plan is currently residing in the grasp of the last person she wants to be with at this moment. "Give me my keys, Hans."

He tucks them into his back pocket just seconds before she lunges forward to snatch them from his hand. She wobbles, kneeling on the concrete, and pitches forward into Hans' chest. He catches her by the elbows and stands, pulling her up with him.

"You can't drive, princess. You can barely walk without doing a face plant on the asphalt."

"Don't call me that." But her voice has been drained of its earlier malice and now she just sounds…_tired._ She grabs the last knickknacks from the ground and places them back in her purse. Her braid has turned into a messy disaster and when she straightens back up, her bangs are hanging in front of her eyes. Hans raises his hand to fix them, but she sidesteps him and does it herself. "Can I have my keys now?"

"No."

"No?"

"You shouldn't drive."

"I'm _not_ letting you drive me home." Elsa makes some half-hearted attempt to reach his back pocket, but he moves away from her, grabbing her forearm when her heels cause her, once again, to wobble precariously.

"You might break your neck on those shoes. I hope they came with some health insurance."

She huffs a sigh that makes the strand of hair hanging across her forehead fly into the air. "Hans. C'mon."

She's close enough that he can almost count every little freckle on the bridge of her nose, and her eyes are wide and imploring, her front teeth chewing on her bottom lip, and everything about her face right now just screams so much _Anna_ that he loses his nerve, fishes her key ring out of his back pocket, and drops it into her waiting palm.

To his everlasting confusion, she doesn't leave right away. The little space in between her eyebrows scrunches and she frowns at him for a few seconds, sucking a sharp breath in between her teeth. Her mouth opens like she's about to say something, and Hans moves closer in anticipation, but then someone slams a car door a few yards away and the moment breaks.

His mind catches up enough for him to grab her elbow just as she begins to turn away. "Elsa." She jerks away from him, again, but she stops walking. "Look. I can't stop you from driving home, but…at least come grab a cup of coffee with me first?"

The look she gives him doesn't exactly overflow with enthusiasm, but she nods and lets him lead her still-shaky figure across the parking lot, so he accepts the small victory and moves on.

* * *

They wind up at some little dive called Charlie's, which happens to be located just across the road from the bar and also, ironically, happens to be open 24 hours, which causes Elsa's last-ditch protest of _I doubt anything's even open this late, _to die on her lips.

It's one of those places that smacks of has-been Americana, a place that's seen better days, better days that must've happened back when George Washington was still alive. The booth they slide into, Hans on one side and Elsa on the other, is red vinyl, sticky and tearing from wear or from stupid high school kids who sink pocket knives into things for fun. The menus are old and yellow and Elsa doesn't even pick hers up, handing it primly back to the waitress with a simple, "I'll have an iced coffee." Hans, after a moment's consideration, orders his own coffee, hot, and a plate of French fries.

"It's four in the morning," Elsa remarks dryly once their haggard-looking waitress leaves with their order slip.

"And?"

"You're eating French fries at four in the morning?"

"Hangover food, princess. Besides, you were the one slamming a fifth of vodka, so don't give me the holier-than-thou attitude right now."

She doesn't even touch the nickname this time, and Hans has to thank the timely return of their waitress for this small favor. She places the coffees down on the sticky tabletop and leaves without a word.

Elsa stirs her coffee, the ice cubes making a gentle clinking against the side of the glass. "It _wasn't_ a fifth of vodka."

"Uh huh."

"It _wasn't!"_

"I saw all those empty glasses."

"They weren't mine."

"Says the girl who flashed me her underwear half a dozen times because she couldn't stop falling in the parking lot."

Elsa makes a noise that's somewhere between a gasp and a squeak and blushes the same shade as the red vinyl booth. "Oh my God."

Hans stirs half a packet of creamer into his coffee. "Hey, I didn't mind. I'm just bringing it to your attention."

"You're disgusting."

"I'm a man."

"And that gives you an excuse?"

Hans flashes a smile that makes her squirm in her seat, but she's spared from having to listen to the next thing he could say by the blessed arrival of the greasy plate of fries. Hans, for his part, wastes no time in shoving them into his mouth, first one by one and then handful by handful. He swallows a mouthful and holds one out towards her.

"Fry?"

"Um. No, thank you."

"It works wonders for a hangover."

"I don't have hangover."

Hans laughs as he pops her unwanted fry into his mouth. "Oh, you will, princess. I guarantee it."

"Whatever," she shrugs, and he quirks an eyebrow at her before grabbing another fry. She watches him chew and chew and chew. "Why are you here, Hans?"

He stops in mid-chew, raising his eyebrows so high that they disappear into the ginger bangs that fall over his forehead. "I asked you to get coffee."

"That's not what I mean. I don't mean here at the diner. I mean, why are you in town again? All of the sudden?"

"Oh." But he picks another fry up off the almost empty plate, pops it into his mouth, and chews. Just when Elsa begins to wonder if he's even heard her, he takes a sip of coffee and says, "Spring break."

"Sorry?"

"It's spring break. I'm here for spring break."

"But, you're-" She cards her fingers through her bangs and frowns. "You're in graduate school, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Do they-um-do people in graduate school even get spring break?"

He removes his focus from the now-empty plate of fries and smiles. "Hence the reason why I'm here."

Hans is just rising from his seat to look for their disgruntled waitress, because he wants more fries, because that first plate went _much too fast_, when Elsa sets her coffee cup down sharply on the table.

"Anna's really happy now, Hans."

He's taken off-guard by this, doesn't understand how they've gone from graduate school to Anna, and when he looks back at Elsa, her eyebrows are drawn together and her lips are pressed in a tight, flat line. She's fiddling with her hands now, the left tightly clasping the right. It's a gesture he remembers from years ago, something Anna used to watch with an anxious face before turning to him and explaining, _She does this. It's a…uh…it's an anxiety thing._

"She's happy now, Hans." Elsa repeats, and then she seems to realize what her hands are doing and sharply pulls them apart.

"That's good."

"It is. And I don't want-"

"Oh, Elsa. C'mon, don't be stupid. I didn't come here for Anna."

"You-you didn't." It's somewhere between a question and a statement and Hans can't help the laugh that escapes his lips.

"No, I didn't. I wasn't going to go home for spring break, though. And see all those jackasses who only remember I'm their brother when they need to borrow money? Nah." He takes a sip of coffee. "Besides, I'm only here for a week."

Elsa returns to her coffee then, barely drunken, and stirs the ice cubes once more, albeit a bit more haphazardly than before. He notices her glance up at him once, twice, and then open and shut her mouth rapidly. She draws in a breath that makes her slight shoulders heave.

"Anna's engaged."

It's out of the blue and spoken almost like bad news, and Elsa's lips flatten once more into a line.

"Oh?"

"Mmhmm." Her jaw is tight and when he looks closely, he can see a tendon working beneath her pale skin. Her hands return to each other, this time so she can pick at her cuticles.

"When did this happen?"

"Tonight. Or, um, yesterday, I guess."

Hans frowns, watches Elsa practically burn a hole in the table with the glare that's currently marring her pretty face, and then something clicks.

"You seem thrilled."

"I'm very happy for her." Her voice is flat and she keeps her eyes turned away from him.

"Getting plastered and letting random creeps put their hand up your shirt seems like a funny way to celebrate."

"I wasn't _plastered,_ Hans. And it's none of your business how I choose to celebrate."

"Except for when there's some guy looking at you like a piece of meat, Elsa. If I hadn't come along-"

"If you hadn't come along, Hans, I'd have been just fine." She digs angrily into her purse, pulls out enough to cover her coffee, and throws the money on her side of the table. "I'm sorry, I don't remember asking you to come save me."

"That's not what I meant."

Elsa stands up, much sturdier than before, and hoists her purse over her shoulder

Hans sighs. "Fuck, Elsa, will you just sit back down?"

She levels him with a glare, her voice ice and malice, and it's bringing him back to _that_ day much more than he'd like to admit.

"Thanks for the coffee, Hans. Have a nice spring break."

And she storms off before he has time to realize that she didn't even let him pay for her coffee.

* * *

When the doorbell rings two days later, her mother gets to it first.

Elsa's in her childhood bedroom, lying on her stomach and trying to make some sense, any sense, of the physics homework she's been assigned over the break, but math's never been her strong suit and her father, who's always been the one to help she and Anna with the more technical subjects, is currently at work, so none of this is getting anywhere. She hears the doorbell ring, but lets it go; it's probably some package, some delivery, some over-enthusiastic or clairvoyant relative already sending Anna a wedding present. It's only when she hears her mother utter a surprised, not entirely cheerful, "Oh, it's you!" and when the voice that answers has an annoyingly familiar timbre, that she rolls off her bed and makes her way downstairs.

Hans is standing on the front porch. Her mother, to her everlasting credit, is forming a formidable sort of barrier between Hans and the interior of the house that Elsa knows is meant to convey to Hans that he is, in no way, allowed into their home.

"Anna didn't say you were back," Her voice is polite, but cool, and Hans almost seems to shrink into himself.

"She, actually-"

"Anna also isn't home at the moment. She's out with her _fiancé."_ Elsa can't help but notice the unnecessary amount of emphasis her mother seems to place on the word and she watches as Hans seems to shrink even further, taking a step back, one heel dangerously close to the top step of the porch. So Elsa steps forward, just behind her mother, and almost instantly, Hans' face seems to flood with relief.

"I think he's actually here for me, mom." She places a gentle hand on her mother's shoulder, her mother who is quite beside herself now, looking back and forth from Elsa to Hans, from her oldest daughter to her youngest daughter's ex-boyfriend. She frowns at Elsa and opens her mouth, closes it, looks to Hans, and then back to Elsa, and then Elsa decides to put her poor mother out of her misery.

"It's okay, you can go back inside, Mom."

"But, Elsa-"

"Mom." Elsa silences her with a sharp, though gentle, look, and her mother finally retreats inside, casting a suspicious, not entirely un-hostile, parting glance at Hans.

The door shuts behind them with a soft click and they're left in the silence of the spring evening; Elsa folds her arms together, grabs her sides, (_You like to hug yourself when you're nervous,_ Anna always says) stares at Hans, and waits. A bird chirps off in the tree. The porch wood creaks as Elsa shifts her weight.

"I'm surprised you're still here."

"I've still got a few days until the break is over," he offers, weakly.

"I see."

Hans shifts between feet, shoving his hands awkwardly in the pockets of his jacket. "I-uh. I'm sorry."

It sounds so forced that Elsa almost wants to laugh; the apology is stiff and about as sincere as a poorly-written greeting card. "Right."

"I was kind of a dick the other night."

"Uh huh."

"I was-" He takes a moment to clear his throat and becomes suddenly, momentarily, very interested in the flower pot on the porch corner. "I was wondering if you wanted to go…do something."

"Why?"

This catches him off-guard and he sputters, just for a moment. He's expecting hopefully a "yes", most likely a "no", and finds himself unprepared for any answer outside of the two.

"Why?" he repeats.

"We're not-" Elsa unfolds her arms and leans against the closed front door. "We're not…_friends,_ Hans. Quite frankly, whenever you'd come around here for Anna, you-you always seemed like you kind of…hated me."

"You seemed like _you_ hated me!"

"Maybe."

"So, I'm not allowed to hate you but you can hate me? That's fine?"

"I'm not asking _you_ to go do something."

Hans sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Just…do you want to go do something? Pretend for five seconds that you don't hate me. Just a "yes" or a "no". That's all, Elsa."

Elsa chews her lip, her brows drawing together, and finally she manages an unconvincing, "I have…homework."

"It's spring break. Yes, or no?"

"Yes…I guess."

Hans smiles and holds out a hand, a hand that she eventually takes, albeit gingerly. "You're going to have to contain that enthusiasm, princess. It's killing me."

* * *

An hour later, Hans pulls his much too shiny, much too new car into a spot near the park. The park, in retrospect, ends up being only about twenty minutes away from Elsa's house, but Hans wasted much too long driving aimlessly, trying to persuade Elsa to tell him where he should go.

_I don't know!_

_Just…tell me anywhere!_

_I DON'T know._

_Fuck, Elsa, this is not a trick question._

Eventually, Hans had suggested going to meet up with the "gang", a suggestion which immediately had Elsa's face twisting like she'd bitten into something particularly sour. The "gang" was Hans' gang, a group of guys he used to run with in high school, guys who he then went to college with, guys who used to refer to Elsa affectionately as "Snow Queen" and "Ice Bitch" and a whole slew of unpleasant nicknames that got progressively worse as they got older. These guys that Hans used to play pool with every Friday night were the same guys that used to shove Elsa into lockers in middle school, that used to ask her out in high school as a practical joke, so Elsa shot that particular suggestion down with a certain amount of venom.

"Here we are, your majesty. The park." Hans performs some sort of mockery of a bow as he opens the passenger door to let Elsa out of the car. She rolls her eyes and follows him across the tiny dirt parking lot and up a grassy hill. He picks a spot that's been untouched by the nightly sprinklers and flops down on his back on the grass. Elsa, after a moment, follows. The stars are just coming out, unobstructed out here due to the lack of artificial light. After a minute, Hans rolls to his side and pushes himself into a seated position.

"This is awfully cliché," Elsa laughs, and she finds her way to sitting and crosses her legs, pulling her dress down over her thighs.

"Hey, pardon me, princess, you shot down all my other suggestions. You get what you get, babe."

"No, it's nice. I like it." She removes some of the stray blades of grass that have found their way into her braid. "I haven't been here in years. My dad used to take Anna and me when we were little."

"That must've been nice." Hans reaches over and plucks a couple of the pieces of grass that Elsa has missed out of her bangs. "With, y'know, so many older brothers…my dad never really had time for all of us."

Hans has accompanied this little life tidbit with a laugh that sounds more forced and bitter than anything else, so Elsa smiles shakily. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I know, I just…I like…apologizing for things, I guess."

Elsa rakes her fingers through her bangs again and then chews on her bottom lip, a gesture that, once again, reminds him so much of Anna that he snaps, "Will you stop that!" before he can control himself, regretting it immediately as Elsa jumps so hard that she almost bites clean through her lip.

"Shit, Elsa, that was stupid of me." He digs in the pockets of his jacket for a tissue, something, anything to clean up the blood that's slowly staining her mouth, but she just waves him off, using the back of her hand to staunch the bleeding.

"It's okay." Her voice is muffled behind her hand, but she attempts something that looks like a smile. After a little bit, she removes her hand and checks it. "You just surprised me. That's all. Did I…um, did I say something-"

"No!" It comes out more abrupt that he means it to, again, and he sees Elsa flinch, just a little bit. He scoots across the grass and closes the distance between them. "No. I just…wish you'd stop apologizing for everything. That's all."

"Oh." Her eyes dart from his face to the much smaller space separating them now, and then back to his face. "Right."

He takes her chin in his hand and tilts her face, trying to catch it in the moonlight. "How's your lip?"

"It's fine," she breathes in return. Elsa's so incredibly pale that, even in the dark, it's hard to miss the blush crawling across her cheeks. Hans laughs and lets go.

"I'm glad." He flops onto his back once more and crosses his arms behind his head. He hears Elsa inhale, but when he waits for her to say something, it never comes. His eyes finally shift from the stars to her face and he finds her staring off to her left.

"Who's Anna marrying?" It's a stupid question, literally the last thing he wants to talk about, but it's too quiet and Elsa looks too blank and he finds he needs to say _something._

"His name's Kristoff."

"Do I know him?"

"I don't _know_, Hans." An edge has crept into her voice, hard and flat, and she folds into herself, cupping her elbows tightly in her hands. "I don't know who you know. His name isn't that common."

"I was just asking."

"He was in some of my classes. English, Chemistry, whatever." Elsa's voice is dull, like she's reading the ingredients from a cereal box.

"Were you friends?"

"Do we need to talk about this?"

"No, of course not, but-"

Elsa stands abruptly, then, arms still tightly wrapped around herself. She retreats a few yards away and Hans quickly follows, stopping far enough to give her some semblance of personal space.

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm _n-not_ upset." But her voice catches just a little and when he looks close enough, he can see the imperceptible shake in her shoulders.

"It's okay to be jealous."

Her only reply is a short, soft laugh that comes out more like a scoff.

"I've been there, Elsa. Lots of my older brothers are married, and-"

"I'm _not_ jealous."

"Then what is it? Because you're don't seem thrilled."

Elsa finally turns around, then, and fixes something on her face that she must think looks like a convincing smile but ends up as more of a grimace. "I'm very happy for Anna."

"You know, you said that same thing a couple nights ago, and it sounded like bullshit then, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I thought, maybe it was just because you were drunk, but…I don't believe it anymore tonight than I did the last time. You're really not happy, are you?" He takes a step towards her. He expects her to back away but she stands firm.

"I'm fine-"

"Stop saying that. You keep saying "I'm fine", but it sounds more like you're trying to convince yourself." He takes one more step and this time, she tries to back up, but he catches her wrist and holds her there. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing." She backs up but his grip on her arm is too tight, tighter still when he takes her other wrist in his other hand.

"Tell me."

"Fuck you."

"Why do you always pretend that you're fine? You never say what _you_ want."

"Stop acting like you know me, Hans. Let me go."

"Fuck, Elsa, you're a mess. You don't even know-"

"No, I'm _not_." Elsa takes one final step back and _pulls_, wrenching her arms free from Hans. Her hands immediately spring together; she clenches them so tight that her knuckles begin to turn white. "No, I'm not. _I'm not._"

Hans says something then, his face falls and he says something, but Elsa can't hear over the dull thrum of white noise in her ears, because _she's not, she's not a mess, but she is, she really is,_ and she bets Hans never told Anna that, bets he used to think she walked on water and hung the stars in the sky. And then, somehow, she's on her knees on the grass and Hans is grabbing her by the shoulders, shaking her, going "Elsa" over and over, and something in her snaps.

"You want to know what's wrong?" She sucks a shaky breath in between her teeth. "Why am I always last? W-why didn't you…w-what's wrong with me?" She looks up at him like she's expecting to find some answer in the frown plastered across his face. "I-I knew you first. I-I knew Kristoff first. And both of you…and Anna…" She laughs then, shrill and watery and a touch hysterical, "This is so st-stupid, I d-don't even_ like_ Kristoff, but, you...w-why didn't-why didn't you like me?"

She doesn't know she's crying until she feels Hans swipe his thumb across her cheek, and when she rubs her own palm across her eyes, it comes back damp. It takes a while, but she finally manages to rein in her breathing; eventually, her sharp, shallow inhales dissolve into soft sniffling.

"I had no idea, Elsa." Hans' hand is cupping her cheek, his thumb skating over her freckles.

Elsa can't tell exactly what he's saying he had no idea about, her feelings for him or just how she felt in general, and she wonders if he's left it vague on purpose. She turns away from his hand, sinks back on her heels, and buries her face in her palms. Some half-choke, half-sob comes escapes her mouth before she can stop it.

"Hey, hey, hey, no. Shh. Don't." Hans' hand is back, under her chin this time, tipping her face up to look at him. "Don't. Look, I fucked up. I shouldn't have said what I did. You're not a mess."

"Yes I am."

"No, you're not. Elsa, you are…strange. Wonderfully strange and so smart and beautiful. You're not-"

Elsa's lips are on his then, soft and tentative and her hands grab his jacket, tugging him towards her, but then, almost as soon as she begins, she stops. Her hands drop and her spine stiffens and he can see the minute widening of her eyes that tells him that she's about five seconds from bolting if he doesn't _do _something.

So he does.

He grabs her hard by the hips, pulling her body flush against his, crashing his lips into hers. Her hands return, shakily, to tangle in his jacket and he threads his fingers through her hair and tugs, swiping his tongue against her bottom lip. She gives a tiny moan into his mouth and then they're gone, teeth nipping and biting, tongues and lips and she can feel his fingers burning on her hips, digging hard and keeping her close, oh so close to him. When she finally pulls away, she discovers his jacket zipper has made little indents on her palms. She laughs and places another short, chaste kiss on Hans's lips, leaning into his arms when he draws her in for a hug.

"You're not a mess," he breathes into her ear, and then he stands, pulling her up with him, steadying her when she bobbles a little.

"Thank you."

Hans gives a little shrug of his shoulders and places a kiss on the corner of her lips. "We should probably get going."

And Elsa nods and lets him place a hand on her back and lead her to his car, and she hopes to God that this wasn't a huge mistake.

* * *

"Where have you been this whole week, Els?" Anna's sprawled diagonally across Elsa's bed, head resting on the statistics book she's supposed to be studying from, though that pretense went out the window exactly five minutes after she showed up and asked Elsa if they could do homework together.

Elsa bites her lip and types a few more sentences of her essay, trying to buy enough time to think of an excuse that doesn't include the truth_, Oh, I've just been hanging out with your ex-boyfriend._

"Um, just, things. I've been busy."

"Elsa, please don't tell me you've been spending your entire break doing homework."

"Hey! I do things other than homework."

Anna rolls onto her stomach and laughs, swiping her arm across the bed and sending her long-forgotten math homework to the floor. "I'm just teasing."

Elsa returns to her essay and, for a while, the only sounds are the soft clack of the keyboard and the slight squeak as Anna rolls to and fro across Elsa's bed. That doesn't last long.

"So?"

"So _what_?"

"What _have_ you been doing?"

"Um." Elsa pauses, halfway through her paragraph on Renaissance art. Anna is at attention now, chin propped up on her hands, giving Elsa "the look", the one she used to use on their parents to get an extra cookie in her lunchbox.

"Yes?"

"I've…actually…been hanging out…with Hans."

"Hans?"

"Uh huh." Elsa tries to make her voice seem as casual as possible, but it catches, just a little.

Anna flops back onto her back and stares at the ceiling in silence for so long that Elsa fears she's fallen asleep or gone into shock. Just as she's rising from her desk chair to check on her, Anna_ hmms_ and says, "So, are you guys, like, together?"

"W-what?! No!"

"Okay, okay, I was just asking." Anna swings her legs over the edge of the bed and sits up and to Elsa's surprise, she doesn't look disappointed or upset or mad or any of the ways that Elsa expected her to. On the contrary, she's smiling. "I'm happy for you!"

"You are?"

"Well, I'm always happy for you, you're my sister! But, yeah. I'm happy you guys are friends."

Elsa bites back a laugh at that, because she isn't sure_ friends_ is right, isn't really sure that anything is _right_. She almost considers coming clean then, considers telling Anna about the meeting at the bar and the night in the park, wants to tell her about going to the movies with Hans the other day and that when she told her parents, last night, that she was going to the library to study, she wound up making out with Hans in the backseat of his car as his hand inched further and further up her shirt.

She wants to tell her these things. She doesn't.

Instead, she simply hits the save button on her essay and closes her laptop, spinning in her desk chair to face Anna. "I was worried you'd be mad."

"Mad?" Anna wrinkles her nose like it's the silliest idea she's ever been presented with. "Why? Because we dated, like, two years ago? Nah, that's old news. I've moved on. I bet he has too! In fact…" She trails off and pulls at the end of one of her braids for a minute before continuing. "Let's invite him to the party on Sunday!"

"The party? Your engagement party?"

"Yeah!"

"But, Anna. Do you really want him there?"

"Sure! You guys can hang out some more. Besides, I've moved on, remember?"

'"But-"

"Elsa." Anna scoots off the bed and kneels in front of Elsa, taking her sister's hands in her own. "It doesn't help any of us to worry about what happened a few years ago. It's best to just move on."

* * *

Hans isn't sure how he ends up scoring an invitation to Anna's engagement party, but it only takes him a few minutes of being there to figure out it wasn't their parents who invited him. Anna greets him pleasantly, always the optimist, takes his hand and leads him to her fiancé, Kristoff, a hulking, blonde dude who brought his huge brown dog to the party. Elsa floats in a few minutes later and he lets her take him by the hand and lead him over to her parents. To their credit, the open hostility they've greeted him with in the past has been replaced with an aloof coolness. Their father shakes his hand like he's trying to break it and their mother offers hers like she's afraid _Hans_ will break it, but their smiles don't seem _too _forced. Hans notices that both of them, the father in particular, are casting wary glances at Hans's hand, which is resting gently on Elsa's lower back, and he'd bet money that as soon as Hans leads Elsa away to go get some punch, the two of them break into wild speculation.

The party is held in the sprawling backyard of Elsa and Anna's home, and it's decked out to the max with paper streamers, paper lanterns, balloons, banners that spell out their congratulations to the couple, and table after table filled with food. For the most part, Hans lets Elsa lead the way. For the most part, she maintains a bright, cordial smile when greeting distant friends and relatives, but the second they're left alone, her face falls into exhausted relief; he'd bet money she's doing a tally in her head of how many relatives she needs to talk to before she can be excused to enjoy some solitude.

Hans is introduced as "Elsa's friend", to those who ask, because "Anna's ex-boyfriend" would be inappropriate and there isn't really a name for what he and Elsa actually are. "The boy Elsa made out with in the park a couple nights ago" sounds much too long.

Elsa turns to him after he's been introduced to what must've been the fourth or fifth great uncle, and smiles. "Okay, I think we're in the clear."

"In the clear?"

"I think I've reached the quota of mysterious, distant family members that I must talk to."

"Oh, good. What now?"

"Now…? Hmm…" She casts a glance at the party, now in full swing. The sun is just going down and the lanterns are just being lit and everyone will probably be eating and drinking and partying late in to the night. Anna and Kristoff are clear on the other side of the yard, surrounded by a group of middle aged women who are _oo-ing_ and _ahh-ing_ over Anna's ring. Elsa reaches down and threads her fingers through Hans's. "Now, we could do anything."

"Anything?" He takes their intertwined hands and brings it around to Elsa's back, pulling her closer to him. She nods, craning her neck to try and locate her parents.

"Yeah, just…maybe let's go inside?" She doesn't wait for an answer before leading him behind her, up the porch steps, through the screen door, and into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, they run into Elsa's mom and her aunt and, _thank God_, they have the foresight to let go of each other before the women can turn and notice them. Elsa's mom turns around with a vegetable tray balanced in one hand and a bowl of dip in the other. She makes no attempt to hide her reaction at seeing Hans.

"Oh! Where're you two off to?"

"Hans wanted to see my room. I told him about all my stuffed animals and he wanted to see them," Elsa lies smoothly, and even Hans is impressed.

"Oh, okay." Elsa can tell her mom doesn't completely buy it, but then she almost fumbles the bowl of dip and suddenly has more important things to concentrate on. "Just-don't take too long, you'll miss the cake!"

"Alright."

Elsa leads Hans out of the kitchen and through the house until they reach the stairs, which they climb with ease until they reach the landing. Hans' arms snake around Elsa from behind and he pulls her flush to his chest, breathing in her ear.

"Are you really showing me your bedroom?"

Elsa laughs, "I guess so," and pulls free from him just long enough to lead him down a hall, and then another hall, until they reach a white door with little blue designs painted onto the wood.

Elsa's room is blue, which doesn't surprise him, blue with little purple, pink, and white designs painted on the walls. The walls, for their part, are adorned with little crayon sketches, almost every one of them signed with a messy scribble that Hans can see, when he gets closer, says "Anna". Elsa hangs back in the doorway, sheepishly, hands coming together to clasp each other.

"What'd you think?"

"It's something, princess. Please don't tell me this is actually your room."

"It is. Well, it was. I mean, I live on my own now, but-but, I come home on break and stay here, I guess…" She trails off and her hands go from clasping each other to wrapping around her body in a poor imitation of a hug. "It's kind of silly, I know."

Hans laughs shortly. "It's cute." He steps closer to one of the pictures on the wall, one that seems to be hanging in a spot of honor next to the headboard of the bed. "What's this?"

"Hmm? Oh!" Elsa draws up behind him, peering over his shoulder. "That's Olaf!"

"Olaf?"

"It's, um…he was a snowman Anna and I made when we were kids." She steps even closer and twines her fingers through his. "He melted, of course, and I could never make him the same again, but…he was always Anna's favorite."

Hans laughs. "I'm pretty sure you're her favorite, Elsa." He continues to squint at the crude drawing of the little snowman even as he takes her hand and tugs her in front of him, securing his arms around her middle. "Most of the stories she would tell me had you involved somehow."

"Oh." She feels a cold chill begin to well in the pit of her stomach even as Hans presses his lips to the back of her neck. "And apparently, _she_ was _your_ favorite."

She wants to smack herself the moment the words leave her mouth, and she can feel Hans stiffen, his arms around her middle drawing in tight until she has to gently tug at his hands to get him to relax and allow her to breathe.

"Elsa," he groans into her ear, and his teeth nip against the lobe, and then he's sighing, "Why are you bringing this up?", his hot breath ghosting across her face and bringing a shiver up her spine. She turns in his arms to find him frowning at her.

"Elsa, come on. Don't be stupid. That doesn't matter anymore."

He gets no reply, Elsa merely presses her lips together in a thin line, and he sighs and slips one of his hands lower down her back, grabbing at her backside.

"I'm leaving tomorrow." He brings one hand up and brushes some of her hair behind her ear so he can speak into it. "Tomorrow."

"I know." And it's only because he's holding her so close that he can feel the little shake that runs up her spine.

_You know this won't last._

He presses his lips into the soft space behind her ear. "Who knows when I'll be back."

_This __**can't**__ last._

"I know." And this time, her breath seems to catch in her chest and the fingers tangled in his shirt twitch involuntarily.

_Now or never, princess._

Elsa's hands move up to grab his collar and she pulls him forward and slams their lips together, moaning into his mouth as one of his hands comes up to grab at her breasts. He tastes like the alcohol-laced punch that they're serving outside at the "adults only" table, and like the little cookies that her aunt has baked just for the occasion, and she thinks of these things and she thinks _Oh God, the party, _and she plants her hands on his chest and _pushes._

"Hans, my mom's going to wonder where we are."

He laughs into her ear; his only answer is the slow slide of his hands to her hips, fingertips digging into her soft flesh, burning through the thin fabric of her dress. She shivers involuntarily, tries to get away, because _Won't Mom and Dad and Anna wonder where I am?_ but then he backs her up, grabs her and pushes her until her back is flush against the wall, and his teeth are biting the space where neck connects to shoulder and she thinks, _Who cares?_

His mouth works its way from her shoulder, up her neck to her jaw, to her lips and he takes her bottom lip in his teeth and he _pulls_. Elsa slips one hand up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging them closer, pressing their lips together harder. She doesn't register that one of his hands has left her hip until she feels it slide up the outside of her thigh. He hikes her dress up, just enough.

"H-hans," she chokes, and he waits, just for a second, raising his eyebrow at her as his finger runs along her hip, just above the waistband of her underwear, and she can't _remember_ what she was even going to say, can't remember if she was actually going to say _anything_, so she shakes her head and his mouth twists in a smirk, and _oh so gently_, he takes one finger and slips it beneath her panties.

Elsa makes a noise that's somewhere between a squeak and a moan, squirming as his finger presses _there_, and he starts to rub, until, finally, he gives a sharp nip to her earlobe and slides the finger inside her.

"F-fuck, H-hans." She scrabbles at his shoulders for purchase, the hand in his hair tugging involuntarily, tugging _hard,_ and he groans into the crook of her neck. His other hand abandons her hip, and then her underwear is being pulled down and her dress is pushed up to her waist and then he pushes a second finger inside her, grabbing her leg and wrapping it around his waist, keeping her firmly pinned to the wall. His thumb brushes gently across her clit and a moan tears loose from her throat, loud enough that Hans has to slap a hand over her mouth.

"Shh, Elsa. Don't want Mommy to hear you, right?" And then he shoves a third finger inside her with no warning, and she screams against his hand and her knees buckle. "Careful, princess. Don't want to alert the entire party."

She fixes him with a glare that is much less intimidating when her face is flushed and her lips are bruised and he's got his fingers inside her, pushing deeper and deeper, faster and faster. She looks like she's about to tell him off for calling her "princess", but then her hips jerk and the hand tangled in his hair tugs, _hard,_ and she comes undone, gasping his name into the palm he still has pressed against her mouth.

He removes his fingers from her and takes his other hand off her mouth, replacing it with his lips, bruising and biting and then he feels her hands slide from his hair down to his belt. "More," she murmurs into his mouth, but her hands are shaking so hard that he pushes them out of the way and does it himself, releasing his belt with a soft _clink_ and undoing the button.

He grabs her by the hips before she can stop him and flips her so her front is against the wall. He presses into her from behind and he works his pants down.

"Hans?" she breathes, and for the first time, there's just the tiniest bit of hesitation in her voice. He snakes an arm around her and pulls her hips towards him. She feels his fingers dig into her, feels him hard against her, and then he tugs her dress up to her waist once again and pushes inside her.

It's fast, maybe a little too fast, and too rough, and the cry rips from her throat before she can stop it. Hans slows, all but stops, brushes her hair back to place a kiss below her ear, but Elsa can't stop, she won't, she _needs this_, so she jerks her hips back, and growls, "Move."

He goes slowly at first, placing a kiss to the back of her neck, to the space between her shoulder blades, until the tension in her shoulders relaxes. He slips a hand around to grope at her breast, the other hand gripping tight to her hip, and he begins to go faster, breathing hard into her shoulder, biting back a groan as she moves her hips to match his rhythm. The sounds of Elsa's ragged breathing and the slick sliding of skin against skin are the only sounds in the bedroom; he feels guilty, just for a second, about fucking Elsa up against the wall of her childhood room, but then he feels her clench around him as she comes, muffling her moan into the back of her hand and all he can think is _Elsa, Elsa, Elsa,_ and he follows shortly after, coming inside her, burying his moan into the back of her neck.

For a long minute, there is nothing but the sounds of their ragged breathing, and then he pulls out, places a kiss on the shell of her ear, and backs away, righting his clothes, allowing her space to do the same.

He turns back just as she's running a hand through her hair, trying to tame her wild bangs. Her face is flushed and when she looks up and catches him watching her, she looks almost embarrassed. Her hands spring to one another, clasping and unclasping, and then she sighs.

"You're leaving tomorrow." And it's not a question.

"I am." He wants to go to her, to close the distance between them, but it feels weird now, feels wrong, so he stands and he watches and he waits.

She looks up after a long while and her face is tight, pained, like an attempt to smile that has come up short. She takes one step forward and then stops. "Okay."

"Okay," he repeats, almost automatically, and then he finally does close the distance between them, tucking one loose strand of hair behind her ear. He doesn't remove his hand, cupping her face gently, and she looks up at him, bites her lip, and it kills him when he sees the little spark of hope.

"We should go back down to the party."

And that spark is promptly snuffed out, and he drops his hand, and she takes a step back, closing her eyes and hugging herself. When her eyes open again, they are cold and blank and she smiles, just a little, forced and plastic.

"Okay."

_We both know it's __**not.**__  
_

x

Seven days.

He comes and he goes and he does it all without even trying, blowing back into her life, unwanted, making himself wanted, prodding and pulling and getting what he wants and letting it go.

Just like that.

It only take seven days to destroy her, seven days to build it up and knock it down, and maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if he didn't seem so _glad_ to go, so indifferent when he loads his bag into his car and says, _Maybe I'll call you._

And she smiles, stiffly, and says, _Maybe you will._

They know that he won't.

Wrong time, wrong place is just the name of the game.

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you for reading! :)


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